this is their saving grace
by symphonies of you
Summary: "You know, I'm starting to think you're scared of love. You're scared that you might feel something more than hate for me, aren't you?" / ROSESCORPIUS, one-shot.


hello, loveys! i'm finally putting out a story after such a long time, and i'm terribly sorry. but to make up for my hiatus, i'll try my best to publish more stories in the next few months!

**warnings: **mentions of sex (not graphic, don't worry), alcohol, smoking, and a fair load of swearing. also, lots of dialogue and metaphors and poetic stuff going on in this one. this is pretty dark, sarcastic, witty, and angsty compared to anything i've ever written, and i highly doubt that i'll ever write anything like this ever again - so i hope you enjoy it!

**words: **8,900.

**disclaimer: **don't own. jkr is queen.

* * *

-o-

He's a sick addiction.

He's like one of those disgusting Muggle cancer sticks. He's so fucking terrible for her health – physical and mental, unfortunately – but she can't stop inhaling him and it's like she needs his dirty nicotine hands on her skin, his smoky grey eyes on hers, to breathe and live. She hates him, absolutely _hates _him. She hates how she needs to feel his skin against hers, him kissing her neck and leaving ghosts that won't bloody leave until they fuck again. She hates how she needs them, him and her, tangled in each other, his hands gripping her hips, his legs between hers, lost in a hurricane of bed sheets slashed with irremovable creases that stay filled with moans and cries no matter how many times she washes those damn sheets.

She fucking hates him. She hates Scorpius Malfoy for getting under her damn skin like this.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Godric knows what her father would say if he knew about their … _mutual friendliness_. Sure, she had needed a stress reliever during her seventh year at Hogwarts and the blond git was the perfect candidate for no-strings-attached sex. Especially because she hated him and he hated her and everyone knows that angry sex is ideal. But three years after graduating, they both somehow ended up working in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and they're still going at it like bunnies in heat. Pathetically angry, horny bunnies in heat.

And she has no idea why.

-o-

"Oi, Weasley, skim through this stack of evidence and pinpoint the important bits!"

"Of course, Mr. Scandliff."

"I expect your notes by five. Two hours, Weasley!"

"Got it, sir!"

Mr. Scandliff is a strict man with a hard-lined face and quite an unforgiving nature when it comes to regulations and deadlines. Rose scurries back to her office and begins underlining and writing notes in the margins right away. Because, y'know, a girl must continually impress her boss in order to get a promotion, and Rose makes a point of finishing much earlier than her given deadlines. An hour later, she's gone through about three-fourths of the hefty stack of papers and clippings, and she decides to take a breather because there's only so much a girl can handle about a multifaceted, cold-blooded murder interspersed with gristly bits about rape, poison and intricate knife work all at one time. She starts heading down the hall to the coffee room to brew herself a cup of coffee when she hears whispers coming from an office two down from hers, and she stops in her tracks when she hears her name and Malfoy's name in the same sentence.

"Weasley and Malfoy are definitely going to end up together."

"Damn, you're joking, right? Because Scorpius has the nicest arse I've ever seen, and I'd _totally_ shag him."

Ah, the new intern. The poor thing fawning over the biggest prat in the universe…wait a minute. What the hell is Marissa doing telling the new intern lies about her and Malfoy having some sort of thing? Bloody hell, _does she know something_?

"No chance, babe. Everyone knows there's sexual tension between those two."

"That doesn't mean they'll end up together. Besides, I wore a shorter skirt yesterday, and he _definitely _noticed."

That fucking little tart. She ought to keep the delusional girl away from Scorpius before she bloody jumps him in his office or something. Wait, why does she even care?

"Oh Kira, you're delusional, dear. Y'see, he visits her office at least three times a day. And he probably doesn't realize it but he makes eyes at her during meetings."

"Eyes as in 'I-Want-To-Shag-Her' or 'I'm-In-Love-With-Her' eyes?"

"Yes to both."

Trembling, Rose continues her way to the coffee room and brews herself her second coffee of the day, spending ten more minutes than necessary in the cramped area because she can't stop thinking about what Marissa told Kira.

Screw Marissa and her stupid, unfounded observations. Eyes? Who the hell watches someone making eyes at someone else for her own creepy satisfaction? Ugh, creepy, nosy, gossipy co-workers. And he may visit her office at least three times a day – how the fuck does Marissa know this? – but that doesn't mean anything. It just means that he enjoys tormenting and teasing her in a manner that just riles her up like no one else can, a manner that isn't completely inappropriate for the workplace at all. So, Marissa's wrong. She's definitely wrong because there's no bloody way that Scorpius Malfoy is in _love _with her. There's no bloody way because they have an _agreement_, and he doesn't _do _love. Despises it, in fact.

She makes her way back to her office and immediately buries herself in the last sixty pages of the history of the murderer in question and of attack tactics featuring Russian knives and something called a booby trap, which she discovers is not as disturbingly suggestive as it sounds. Twenty minutes before five, Rose is finally finished – and exhausted – with the load of notes and gathers up the disarray of papers and clippings with a nonverbal spell, tying the stack with a neat, thin ribbon. Walking down to Scandliff's office with the stack tucked under arm, she lets out a small squeak when she feels a familiar hand grab her arse. She whips her head around to glare at the all too familiar idiot sporting a crown of white-blond hair and amused grey eyes.

"The _fuck_, Malfoy? We're at _work_, dipshit!"

"You didn't seem to care when I fucked you against the door of my office yesterday," he drawls.

She scowls. "Because that was behind a closed, _locked _door. Right now, we're in the fucking _hallway_, Malfoy."

"Whatever. Did you get a new skirt?"

"Uh yes, why?"

He leans in close, his lips seductively brushing her ear. "Because I can't stop looking at your arse and I want to fuck you, Weasley. Right now, in fact."

Shit. Bugger. Oh Godric, she can feel herself instinctively leaning into him for the sake of involuntarily seeking the godforsaken but desirable closeness of two bodies that were never meant to touch. His hands inch underneath her skirt to cup her bum, and she nearly moves to thrust her hands into his hair and wrap her legs around his waist when the weight of the stack in her right arm reminds her that she has an urgent deadline to meet.

Abruptly removing herself from him and straightening her attire, she clears her throat. "As much supposed fun it would be to shag you in the middle of the hallway, I've got to deliver these to Scandliff in seventeen minutes, if you'll excuse me."

"I was about to distract you from a possible promotion from Scandliff? Brilliant."

"Fuck you, Malfoy."

"Well, you _will be _in five minutes."

She flips him the bird and continues walking to Scandliff's office, reaching it with sixteen minutes to spare. Delivering the stack with a fake – because Malfoy has ruined her mood – smile, she bites her bottom lip as she watches Scandliff peruse the notes and possible conclusions she has made.

"Not bad, Weasley. You can go home for the day. See you Monday."

She breathes a sigh of relief and thanks him profusely with a genuine smile on her face this time, practically skipping out of the room because she's _sure _that she'll get a promotion by next month. When she reaches her office, she rolls her eyes and scowls when she sees that Malfoy is sitting in her chair and has put his feet on her desk as if he owns the place.

He smirks. "Your place or mine?"

"Mine, if you take your feet off my desk."

"Deal."

-o-

On the kitchen table, against the wall, on the countertop, then…

She loses count. The trail of kisses that he leaves at the base of her throat, down the valley between her breasts, is the hot end of a cigarette burning holes into her skin and she's on fucking fire and she can't breathe so she kisses him because kissing him is like breathing oxygen while drowning. And suddenly, he's inside of her and hell, all she can see are stars, and she can feel the smoke filling up her lungs again, but in a way that feels paradoxically _good _and twistedly beautiful.

"Fuck me until we both can't walk straight, Malfoy," she hisses.

And he does. She moans at the feel of his skin burning _hot _against hers, and he groans when she bucks her hips against his, and shit, it's so breath-taking until it almost hurts. It almost hurts because it's like their bodies are biologically engineered to fit just each other's perfectly, and it's a damn shame that they're not in love because they could be something really beautiful.

Is it still just sex if it feels like they could be something really beautiful?

They eventually end up in her bed, and he stays the night.

-o-

She wakes up in his arms, and it's not a bad feeling. Maybe even a bit nice. But why is he still here? He never stays the night because it's – she's directly quoting him by the way – for "sickeningly naïve people who believe in something as stupid as love."

So, she elbows him awake and asks him. "Thought you didn't like staying the night. And what the fuck are you doing spooning me like we're some sort of couple?"

He ignores her last question and smirks. "Thought we'd have a go at round seven and break our record."

They shagged _six times_ last night? Merlin, they're officially worse than angry, horny bunnies in heat.

"Too tired to Apparate back to your flat?"

"Maybe, but I'm never too tired for more sex with you, Weasley."

"Wanker."

"That I am."

"Weak."

"Weak for you, maybe. You're a bloody lioness in bed, love."

She freezes. _Love_, he just called her _love_. He offhandedly calls her that from time to time but this time, it makes Rose think of what Marissa said yesterday, about him making bloody 'I'm-In-Love-With-Her' eyes at her during meetings. It can't be true, can it? She stares at him, as if she can find some sort of sign in the tiny scar at the corner of his right eye, in the angles of his unfairly, perfectly chiselled face, in the slightly crooked curve of his teasing smirk.

"Something wrong, Weasley?" he drawls, raising a pale eyebrow.

"Are you in love with me?"

He barely stiffens, but she notices. "Why would you think that?"

Oh god, oh god, oh god. He's in love with her, but he can't be. He can't be. He narrows his eyes slightly and his face grows a bit paler than she thought possible and oh god, she can see it, she can see that he might love her. He might actually love her, but he can't. He can't, he's not supposed to.

"What the _fuck_, Malfoy? We had a bloody agreement!" she shrieks, sitting up in bed.

"That was four fucking years ago, Weasley! And goddammit, I didn't bloody ask for this to happen. Merlin knows I could do without your bitching and that tangled nest you call hair," he yells back at her, sitting up as well.

"If you haven't noticed, we're still fucking every single fucking night, so that agreement is still in place. Otherwise, I wouldn't even bother fraternizing with you, arsehole!"

He looks slightly pained and so, so cold like a pale marble statue of a Classical Greek god. "I didn't ask to be in love with you. And I don't fucking know why I am, but I am."

"You're pathetic, Malfoy. Weren't you the one who said that love is for shitheads?" she snarls.

He looks almost murderous, his eyes now the colour of a summer storm and as hard as flint. "Fuck you, Weasley. Life makes us do shitty things sometimes like falling in love with your childhood enemy, and we have no choice but to fucking _deal_."

She rolls her eyes. "Oh boo hoo, life is a bitch, but it doesn't get to dictate your fucking feelings. Love doesn't get a say in the agreement we have. Or _had_."

"You know, I'm starting to think you're scared of love. You're scared that you might feel something more than hate for me, aren't you?"

She gasps. How dare he suggest that she could ever possibly love him! Oh Merlin, Rose Weasley in love with her father's enemy's son, Scorpius Malfoy? How ridiculous. Unfathomable.

"You're hilarious. Now get out before I hex your balls off."

"Gladly. Don't miss me too much."

-o-

She'd like to say that she'd rather put a lighter to her skin than say that she misses him.

But she can't. She can't because even though she hates him, she actually _might_ miss him, and it hurts more than lighting herself on fire would.

It's been six days, thirteen hours, eighteen minutes, and twelve seconds, and she might miss him. She thinks she might miss him because it feels like she's missing one of her lungs and it hurts to breathe because THE OTHER HALF OF HER LUNGS IS MISSINGand she can't stop shaking and her lips are turning blue and she's buried under six feet of blankets that should keep her warm but all she feels is cold. She feels empty, emptier than the gaping hole in the left side of her chest, and missing him is like getting hypothermia even though she's sitting right in front of a warm fireplace and oh god, SOMEONE PLEASE CALL THE EMERGENCY ROOM BECAUSE SHE—

She misses him.

-o-

A month later, Scorpius gets the promotion.

She kind of hopes that he'd drop by just to taunt her, to mock her, to rub it in her face like he would've a month ago.

He doesn't.

-o-

"You look really thin, Rose. Have you been eating enough?"

"I'm fine, Mum."

Later, she goes to the bathroom and stares at a girl she can't recognize in the mirror. She stares and stares and stares. The girl in the mirror is almost skeletal with ghostly pale skin thinly stretched over rotting bones and veins filled with aged firewhisky because that's about all she drinks these days. She looks like she's in a fucking state of withdrawal, as if she had needed him to survive, not to live but to actually _survive _because she breathes in more carbon dioxide than oxygen these days and he's the oxygen to the smoke eating away at the one lung that she has. She's almost angry at herself for letting a _boy_ do this to her, but she can't bring herself to feel anything anymore because that's all she feels now: numb.

She's a trembling bag of bones still missing a lung.

"I'm fine."

-o-

The first time Rose realizes that she might love him is when she finds his scarf.

She's rummaging through her drawers for a missing shirt that she hasn't seen in months when she finds it. She buries her face in it and inhales the familiar scent of his cologne and pine and a faint whiff of coffee from the time he had gotten coffee-flavoured ice-cream on the scarf and –

And it's the first real smile she's worn in two months.

-o-

She always assumed that she was a house made of stone with diamonds for windows. She always swore that she was untouchable, that she was invincible because she is arrogant and scornful and cynical and sarcastic and heartless and overconfident and unfeeling and fearless, and she is the cruel edge of a sharp blade – cold and vindictive and hell. She always swore that she would let no one touch her, that she would let no one put a matchstick to her skin and set her on fire because no one had the privilege to touch or feel or hurt her.

But he always got under her skin. She never let him, but he did anyways because he's never been a stickler for the rules, and neither has she.

She never thought that she could be shattered. But she's apparently a glass house. Hell, she's a glass house with windows that are melting under the sun because she apparently built them out of fucking _ice_ for some goddamn reason, and there are splinters and fissures in her skin, ugly earthquakes that are quickly filling up with rain that won't stop shouting that she misses him and that is why she is shattering.

She's shattering because of a boy, and for the first time in her life, she's scared.

-o-

The second time Rose realizes that she might love him is when she runs into him in the hallway at work.

She _literally_ runs into him. Walking down the hallway to Scandliff's office to deliver a stack of files, she suddenly remembers that she left the last file about the most recent hit-and-run attack with signs of magical activity in Muggle London on her desk. When she turns around to rush back to her office, she crashes into a solid body, and she curses when the papers from one of her files go flying.

It's him. She stares at him as he bends down to pick up the papers and hand them back to her. Breathless, she's breathless when their eyes meet, a cosmic collision of blue and grey, and they can't stop looking at each other in a way that almost seems intimate. She swears there are faint scorch marks where his hand barely brushes hers because all she does is burn endlessly even when he barely touches her – his warm hand lingering on hers, the holy kiss between their hands like an unsaid prayer. He smells like coffee; his hands smell like the coffee that he used to bring her every morning. She doesn't understand why he made her coffee all those mornings, and she's asked him many, _many _times. But he had somehow managed to avoid answering her every single time.

She remembers the first time he brought her a cup of coffee, and she remembers testing it for any hint of poison or truth potion, just in case he "accidentally" slipped some in. She remembers telling him that she'd castrate him and feed his testicles to his cat if he tried any funny business, and she remembers rolling her eyes at him when he told her to stop being a paranoid bitch and just drink the damn coffee.

It didn't taste too bad, but she told him that it tasted like him: absolute shit.

The funny thing is, it started to taste like him, like the way he looked at her sometimes with an unreadable look in his eyes, a look that made her feel something that she could never really put a name to. It started to taste like the smoke in his eyes and the whisky of his mouth. It was almost synesthetic, a startling engulfing of her senses. She never knew that coffee could taste like the groan of her last name on his lips before she swallowed it and kissed him so hard until they were both dizzy and the room smelled like coffee.

The coffee wasn't absolute shit, and neither was he; but they were both addictive as hell.

"You might find it strange, but it _is _common courtesy to thank someone for helping you, y'know."

For the first time, she doesn't have a witty reply. She reckons it's because she feels like she owes him an apology or something for causing this rift between them. "Thanks. Sorry for crashing into you."

It's a shit apology, and he knows it. He looks at her, and she feels naked under his gaze. "Saying sorry never fixes anything, Weasley."

There is something in the way that he says it. There is something in the way that he looks at her that finally makes her realize why he kept bringing her the coffee that he brewed himself all those mornings: he cared about her, and he still does.

Then, he walks away, and her heart stops beating for a second when she realizes that she cares about him, too.

-o-

The third time that Rose realizes that she might love him is at a staff meeting.

It happens when Scandliff is pacing around the room and asks a question concerning the probable solution to uncovering the felon among three equally suspicious suspects. It's a question that none of them can answer – not even her with her love for problem solving. But five minutes later, the sole occupant of her nightly drunken thoughts answers the question.

It's no wonder that he got the promotion. He delivers his answer with an eloquence that could almost be counted as charmingly arrogant but is more intellectually stimulating – his answer involving reverse psychology and a crafty, manipulative interrogation tactic that leaves everyone, including Scandliff, a bit starry-eyed and clapping up a storm. Merlin, his answer is fantastic, fantastic to the point that she is a bit admiring of his intellectual prowess – an intellect that is second to hers, of course – like everyone else. But she would cut off her right arm before showing her reluctant appreciation for him as a fellow intellectual because he's Scorpius Malfoy, an arrogant arse who needs to be taken down and has an overinflated ego that somehow hasn't combusted yet despite its ridiculous immensity. Bugger, she really needs to work on her shit public speaking skills and her currently not-so-stellar problem solving skills if she wants to one-up her oldest rival as she did at Hogwarts.

Their eyes meet, and he smirks at her, no doubt relishing the fact that he showed her up at a very important meeting. She expects to feel irritated, vexed, _anything_ but the drunken giddiness that rules her head when she's drinking Malfoy under the table at his favourite pub, which usually ends up with them practically shagging with half of their clothes off and getting thrown out for pissing off the two forty-year-old male bartenders – probably both virgins, if you ask her. But now, the smirk is gone, and he's looking at her like a starving man that hasn't eaten in days. And fuck, she's sure that she's blushing right now, and for some reason, there is a foreign warmth invading her stomach and a sudden, unnatural shyness in the unintentional fluttering of her heart. So yeah, right now, Rose is sure that her intended scornful, unimpressed look looks a hell lot more like a wide-eyed gaze and—

Bugger. She fancies him. She may even _love _him like he loves her. And she takes back her statement about cutting her right arm off because goddamn, she admittedly finds his intelligence _attractive_. She suppresses a groan when she realizes how _blind _she has been. So, she may or may not love the fact that they can actually have intellectually stimulating conversations about the correlations between Muggle and Wizarding politics when they're both drunk. In fact, she loves how he is mostly coherent and paradoxically _eloquent _even when drunk, and so is she. Oh hell, she loves that they have heated arguments about Wizengamot's recent court rulings between gasps and moans when he's fucking her senseless against the brick wall in the alley behind his favourite pub. She loves the indisputable fact that they're both magnificent multitaskers and may or may not love that the only person that she can do all of these things with is Scorpius Malfoy.

Bloody hell, she loves him. She _loves_ him.

-o-

They're filing out of the meeting room when he whispers, "I need you right now," into the tingling shell of her ear and grabs her hand, pulling her away in the direction of his office despite the curious eyes of leering onlookers.

"I don't fucking appreciate being manhandled by you, Malfoy," she hisses, watching him murmur _Muffliato _and also cast a strong locking charm once they're both inside his office.

"Whatever. You're horny, and so am I, so let's just fuck and get this over with," he mutters, pulling her to him and kissing her roughly.

"Did you really have to do that in front of everyone? For all I know, everyone probably thinks I'm your whore now," she mumbles, tugging at his hair and making him groan.

Scorpius pulls away for a moment and smirks. "Rose Weasley's my whore…I rather like the sound of that."

Rose glares at the devilishly handsome but abominable prat smirking at her. "You wanted to fuck. So, shut up before I change my mind."

He laughs, and she loses herself a bit in that laugh because she has missed it without meaning to. They fuck on his desk, and it's just like old times, except it's not. It used to be no feelings and just sex, but it's not, not anymore. Now, it's both, it's both sex and feelings galore, and sodding hell, she doesn't mean to but she fucking screams his name. Not _bloody fuck_, not _Malfoy_, but —

SCORPIUS. FUCK, SCORPIUS, _FUCK_.

She wants to cover her face in embarrassment and leave because she basically just gave it away that she fancies him, too. But he doesn't give her the chance as he pins her down and kisses her harder. He sucks and licks and kisses the sensitive spot beneath her jaw, making her moan and gasp, and she screams his name again as he enters her. Her hips instinctively move with his and god, he yells her name, too.

This isn't a convenient fuck anymore. It is anything _but _convenient now. Their movements are becoming shaky and hesitantbecause they've realized that they could be more than this, more than an immoral convenience, and it's like they're real lovers, two people who are actually in love, having sex for the first time – unsure, but unconsciously wanting something more. Something that doesn't have to be twistedly or paradoxically beautiful like they have always unintentionally been, but just plain beautiful. Just plain beautiful like the stars in the night sky, like that little thing called love.

She breaks away because oh hell, she's terrified. She pulls her skirt back down and puts her knickers back on. She can't do this, she fucking can't. What does she know about love besides the wishful love portrayed in the cheesy Muggle films that she secretly watches? She knows nothing. Love isn't supposed to exist in the form of Scorpius Malfoy, it just isn't. Oh Godric, she can't do this.

"Rose, I —"

"I have to go. See you never, Malfoy."

"We need to talk. Don't you fucking dare run away, Rose."

He tries to grab her arm, but she wriggles out of his grasp and unlocks the door before bolting out of the room. "This isn't over. Merlin's pants, DON'T BE A COWARD, ROSE NYMPHADORA WEASLEY!"

She nearly stops to turn around and hex him for basically revealing her middle name to the entire hallway of nosy co-workers that she knows are not-so-furtively peeping out of their doorways and watching their interaction. But she keeps running because that's what she is: a coward.

Rose Weasley is scared as hell when she doesn't know something because she's used to knowing everything and how to solve every problem but fuck, she hasn't a clue what to do about this mess. So, she runs because this love is a complete stranger that she has never known. She has never known a crazy, confusing love that leaves her burning like this.

She runs because she is scared of loving him.

-o-

Every millisecond of every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of one month of self-imposed isolation is a cornucopia of questions without answers for a frazzled, insomniac Rose Weasley. It is thirty nights of muffled screaming into pillows and throwing half-empty beer bottles across the room and staring at the broken glass and the dark brown blooming across her white walls and white carpet at four in the morning without understanding.

Once upon a time, she hated him, and he hated her. Now she loves him, and he loves her.

Where did they go wrong? Are they wrong? Are they right? Is loving him right?

There is no answer except for the deafening silence all around her.

-o-

She has always been the girl with words like knives and a smile like a loaded gun.

But after one month of moping and avoiding him at work, Rose Weasley has come to the pitiful conclusion that Scorpius Malfoy has made her weak. She's not supposed to have any weak moments. She's supposed to be strong with a bravado that puts boys like Scorpius Malfoy to shame. She's supposed to be unfazed by boys like Scorpius Malfoy. But he has rendered the eloquence of her flawless mind the incoherency of a constellation broken, the chaos and tragedy of dying stars. His absence has made her a star close to burning out because she is weak for a boy with matchstick fingers and a wicked smirk.

She's weak for him because SHE NEEDS HIM. It's not even a physical need anymore; yes, she misses shagging him, but that's not it. Not this time. She needs him because she hasn't smiled or laughed in weeks and she misses him like hell. She misses the way he touches her, the way he leaves her head spinning and her skin burning in a way that should be illegal. She misses the coffee he used to bring her every morning, the way he crosses his arms across his chest and bickers with her as he makes sure that she drinks his coffee. She misses the way he can (nearly) outwit her, the way he can (nearly) outargue her. She misses the way the intensity of their quips builds until their noses are less than a centimetre apart and suddenly, they're kissing so hard until they are burning houses with fallen wooden beams everywhere and ALL THEY CAN TASTE IS SMOKE, the smoke of his cigarette mouth that she can't seem to quit.

She misses being able to smile and laugh and form cutting remarks and drink his coffee and kiss him. She misses BEING ABLE TO LIVE. Not to survive, but to _live_.

It is eleven at night and without realizing it, she has been absentmindedly rummaging through her drawers and she finds the scarf again. _His_ slightly coffee-scented scarf. It brings a smile to her face just like it did last time and oh god, it finally hits her that Scorpius Malfoy is the one person that allows her to live. He's the one who makes her unwittingly smile and laugh, but he's also the one who challenges her, inducing her to come up with cutting remarks faster than he can just to spite him. He's the one who forces her to drink the coffee that is almost as addictive as he is. He's the one with kisses that make her body arch into the concave of his; he's the one with whirlwind kisses that leave her wanting MORE, THAT LEAVE HER WANTING TO—

To be in love with him.

On the spur of the moment, she calls her owl to her. She grabs a spare quill from her desk and begins writing before she loses her nerve.

_I believe this is yours, just as my sanity (possibly heart) pathetically is._

_-The best fuck you ever had._

She wraps the scarf in packaging paper before sealing the letter in an envelope and attaching it to the packaged scarf.

"Take this to the blonde wanker, Prim."

She opens her window and watches her owl fly out, smiling to herself because she's finally back to her normal blunt, unapologetic self.

Rose Weasley is in love, but she isn't afraid anymore.

-o-

Fifteen minutes later, she hears a knock on her door, and she knows it's him. It's kind of funny that she immediately recognizes his familiar knock – two soft raps followed by three sharp raps that could cut glass – because it further proves the point that she knows him so well that she should have known it. She should have known that she has been in love with him all this time, maybe even longer than he has been in love with her.

Rose opens the door and she isn't too surprised to see him impeccably dressed, donning an oxford sweater with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, since he has always been an incorrigible snob about everything, including men's fashion. On the other hand, she's wearing nothing but an oversized Puddlemere United jersey (her father's outrage at her support of Puddlemere United is irrelevant because the Chudley Cannons haven't won a single game in five years) and skimpy underwear. Oh fuck, she can feel her face getting hot as his lips curve into a slow smirk, his gaze lingering on her exposed legs as if he's imagining kissing the inside of her thighs and doing dirty things to her.

(Which he probably is, knowing the wanker.)

"Hi."

"Hi."

She steps aside to let him in and closes the door shut. He follows her into the kitchen where she suddenly stops in mid-step and he collides into her. Her arms reach for the countertop to steady the two of them and for a second, she can't breathe. She can't breathe because she can feel him, all of him, pressed into her backside with his legs touching hers and his breath softly, gently stirring her hair and tickling the back of her neck, and god, she has missed being this close to him. She turns around and feels the countertop brush the small of her back. He lifts her onto the countertop and meets her in a burning kiss that has their hearts racing recklessly. Wrapping her legs around his waist like she has countless times right before they fucked on the kitchen countertop, she shivers as his fingers trail down her shoulders, her arms, only to wander underneath her shirt to grab her hips to pull her even closer to him and _fuck_, they need to talk but they haven't been this near each other in a month and they need to—

"There's a reason why we always have this need to be near each other like this."

"Pray tell."

He steps away from her and crosses his arms, raising an eyebrow. "You're the one who sent me that beautifully-written letter. You tell me."

Her mouth is suddenly dry. "Shit, I, uh … fuck."

"Eloquent. It's always excellent having rather intellectually stimulating conversations with you."

"Fuck you, Scorpius. Nothing about this is logical, so I have no bloody idea what to say!"

"Start with the letter, with why you wrote it. And … and why you called me Scorpius."

She looks away from him. "I realized that I loved you when you were gone and we weren't talking and I felt cold even when it was hot outside. But I don't think I can pinpoint the exact moment I started loving you. I just do. I realized that you're the only person who brings me coffee in the mornings and rivals me in the wit and intelligence area and makes me smile when I don't want to. And calling you Scorpius started feeling like the most natural thing in the world, so I sent you that letter because I thought you should know that I'm in love with you, too. And honestly, I never expected to fall in love at all because we … I'm … I'm a highly logical person and nothing about this, about us, is logical at all. And it isn't supposed to be – love rarely ever is."

She pauses and forgets all of her words because he's staring at her and he looks just as breathless as she feels. He steps closer to her to tuck an escaping red curl behind her ear, leaving her heart beating wildly inside her chest like a bird struggling against the ribs of its cage. Her heart is a war drum that has lost all sense of rhythm because he has never been so innocently, so tenderly intimate before and oh god, this love could be something incredibly beautiful.

He scorches her with his grey-eyed gaze. "Honestly? I thought I was stuck in a nightmare when I first figured it out. Don't give me that look; I know you felt the exact same way because I know you. I know that you have a fetish for Muggle rock music. I know that despite contrary belief, your favourite flower is an orchid, and I'm the one who sent those orchids to your office on your birthday. I know that you like painting roses even though you hate them and that you're disorganized as hell but you colour coordinate your fucking _socks _for some reason. And I sound like a bloody ponce right now, but dammit, I like knowing these things. I just do."

"You sent me those orchids?"

"Is that seriously all you got out of that?"

"That, and you're a bloody pansy who manages to ruin moments by also sending a fucking rose-scented card covered in hot pink roses."

"Well, I picked it especially for you. I thought you'd like it."

"And I totally did not hurl it into the fireplace."

He suddenly frowns. "Fucking hell, did you call me a pansy?"

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, keep up, Scorpius."

He scowls. "I am _not_ a pansy."

"Are too."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not."

"God, we're such fucking children."

"Fucking children who tend to fuck on a daily basis."

She groans. "You're incorrigible."

He smirks. "That's me: incorrigible and born to irritate the hell out of Rose Weasley."

"And to kill the sweetness of a moment."

"Don't forget ridiculously charming, intelligent, and sexy."

"And incredibly humble, too."

"And finally successful in wooing Rose Weasley after shagging her for the past four years."

She makes a face before quietly asking, "So why _do _you love me?"

Scorpius smiles a soft, small smile. God, she fucking loves his smile even more than she loves his smirk. She loves everything about him. Fuck, is it even allowed to love this boy, a boy with an entire summer storm in his eyes and a galaxy of stars in his stupid, lopsided smile? Is it possible to love him this much?

He smiles, and it is a prelude to a confession that makes her heart stumble and trip over its feet.

He begins quietly, "I found myself liking that you're my counterpart: witty, sarcastic, cynical, dramatic, and unafraid. But it's the stupid quirky little things that you do that made me love you. I like the way your eyebrows get scrunched together and you bite your lip at work until it drives me mad because I want to bite your lip for you and kiss you until you forget all about whatever case is stressing you out. I like that you almost always eat blueberry waffles for lunch and that you only like them with whipped cream even though it's unhealthy as fuck but you don't give a shit, not even when I tell you it'll go straight to your hips. In fact, you only give a shit when I offer to take you out to the café across the street and you hex me because I'm 'trying to meddle in the love affair you have with blueberry waffles.'"

Scorpius pauses and smirks at the smile she's trying to hide. "And I fucking love that your handwriting changes according to your mood, that your eyes darken when you're mad at me, that you burn easily under the sun. I fucking love that you have a tiny dimple in your right cheek, that you have the tiniest bump at the bridge of your nose when you got knocked off your broom during a Quidditch game our third year, that you still look fucking beautiful when you're scowling at something I said or did. I fucking love that you make your bed and dust your kitchen countertop and colour coordinate your socks, but the rest of your flat looks like a fucking hurricane just went through it. Dammit, I love that you painted that one wall in your bedroom three different colours at two in the morning that one time after we fucked and you did it unashamedly naked and hot as hell and you swayed your hips while you changed the colour from lavender to lime green to midnight blue and I wanted to fuck you again. Hell, I want to make love to you because you're different and you deserve better than a fuck. You're Rose Weasley and you're kind of alright and I love you. I do."

Her mouth is slightly ajar before she realizes herself and blurts the first thing that comes to mind.

"If you told me all of this before I realized I loved you too, I would have hexed your genitals off, vanished your clothes, stuck you in a twinless Vanishing Cabinet, and sent you to some godforsaken place."

Scorpius steps closer to her and smirks again. "Did I forget to mention that I also love your blunt, sometimes frightening, honesty?"

She sighs and looks away. "I've been a complete bitch to you. You deserve better. You dress in oxford sweaters and nice leather shoes, and I slip on an oversized Puddlemere jersey and skimpy underwear. You brew possibly the best coffee I've ever had, and my coffee depressingly tastes like shit. You do your laundry and you own my cat now because it loves you more and you know how to cook and you iron your clothes and you play the piano magnificently. And me? I used to think I was your better half, but in reality, I'm a mess. I'm too flawed. I'm cold and overconfident and arrogant and vindictive and scornful. I'm a cosmic collision that fucked up and ended up taking out an entire galaxy. I'm not made to love, and I was never made to be loved. Why the hell would you pick someone like me to love?"

He frowns. "I don't know much about love, but I know that you never choose who you love. As much of a pathetic sod I sound, know that I am lucky to love you. You might be cold and overconfident and arrogant and vindictive and scornful, but so am I. And Merlin, you said that I make you smile, but I'm fairly sure you make me smile even more."

"Smirks don't count as smiles, Scorpius."

He scowls. "Just because you don't see my smiles doesn't mean that they're not bloody there, Rose."

"Touché."

Scorpius continues, "You've seen the shittiest parts of me, and I've seen yours. And I think that's what makes this beautiful: the fact that you're a terrible person because we all are – we're terribly flawed – but the goodness in you outweighs all the bad. You are wild and spontaneous and loud and fun and fucking beautiful. I love going drinking with you and listening to you go off about some social or political issue. I love that you speak in metaphors when you're confused or anxious or upset, and I love that you could've been a poet in a past life. You're honestly incredible, and I know you're never gonna let me forget that I said that, but you have to know that I love that there is no one in this world remotely like you. Not in the slightest. I am in love with you, and I am lucky to be. God knows I would've thrown myself off a cliff if I ended up falling in love with someone like Violet Parkinson."

She laughs at the last part, and he grins down at her. She thinks she can get used to this, them laughing and smiling at each other and not wanting to kill each other every other minute.

Rose looks up at him through her eyelashes. "Who knew Scorpius Malfoy could be such a romantic?"

Scorpius smirks. "Well, I would've gone into detail about how much I love your tits and arse, but that would've, ah, 'ruined the sweetness of the moment.'"

"Thank Merlin you had the sense not to do that."

One corner of his mouth quirks upward, and he steps closer to her in one fluid movement. She's still sitting on the countertop with her bare legs dangling, and her breath hitches when he gently tilts her face upward with his index finger under her chin. Then, he meets her in a soft kiss, a butterfly kiss that makes her heart stutter. She smiles against his lips, kissing him back in a gentle, tender softness that renders both of them breathless and her head spinning and feeling like they can fly.

And he touches her. He touches her hips and the small of her back, and he touches her like she is spun glass, his fingers ghosting her bare, trembling skin like she is the weathered keys of an old piano that hasn't been touched in years.

He breaks the kiss and rests his forehead against hers, and god, this feels so intimate and she's so fucking nervous because she's never had this before. She's never had him, a boy, _anyone_ look at her like this and rest their forehead against hers and accidentally bump noses and kiss her like she's beautiful and important and she means the entire world even though she's just Rose. She has never had butterflies in her stomach before. This is a different sort of exhilaration, different from the feeling in her legs and the dizziness in her head when she's completely piss-drunk and dancing in a club and screaming her head off because she can and because life feels so much realer when you're drunk.

This is the kind of exhilaration that smells like purple orchids in the spring, the kind that feels like drinking a cuppa and falling asleep in your favourite chair by the fireplace in the wintertime. It's the kind that makes your toes curl and makes you feel like this is what home is – tangled up in him. It doesn't let you feel anything else; it is the way you breathe and smile after riding every rollercoaster you've ever ridden all at once.

"You can actually be sort of sweet, Scorpius."

"To be honest, I don't really know what I'm doing."

"I think you're doing alright."

"Only alright?"

"Oh alright, _splendidly_."

He grins. "Can I kiss you again?"

She smirks and leans in to whisper his ear, "Make love to me."

"Even better."

He sets her on fire with one burning kiss, one that dances through the forest of her bones. She hooks her legs around his waist and kisses him harder, and she squeals when he squeezes her bum before letting his fingers roam over the small of her back.

_Cheeky sod._

Lost in the siren wildfire of his cigarette mouth, she doesn't notice him grabbing her thighs and carrying her to her bedroom. She doesn't notice until they're on her bed and he's kissing her neck and somehow, half of their clothes are strewn across the room. Instinctively leaning into the heat of his body, she pulls him closer to her, craving the closeness of two bodies, two continents forbidden but fated to touch.

This is a reckless dance between two stubborn lovers, a tale of the two poles bridging the seas between them. This is the unbreakable melody of two untempered wildfires, of two beating hearts singing stars into existence; it's the first, real meeting of two flawed souls, just two people in honest love, and god, it's fucking beautiful.

They make love, and it's gentle and sweet and —

And it's beautiful.

-o-

Rose wakes up to the smell of blueberry waffles.

She can't exactly find her clothes and can't be bothered to search through the catastrophe of her drawers and closet for any hint of laundry that she may have somehow done without her mum reminding her, so she settles for slipping his oxford sweater and her knickers on before walking out of the bedroom. Dashing into her small, cluttered kitchen, she breathes in the familiar scent of her favourite meal and can't help but beam at the sight of a shirtless Scorpius standing in front of her beloved waffle maker with his back to her.

A sight she can definitely get used to.

"I see you've already discovered the way to my heart," she notes, her eyes sparkling with glee.

"You know me: shrewd and particularly brilliant," he drawls, scooping the waffles onto a plate and handing it to her.

"Not to mention worryingly arrogant."

Topping her blueberry waffles with deliciously unhealthy whipped cream, she stuffs a spoonful of the waffles into her mouth and widens her eyes in surprise because _fuck_, they're better than hers.

However, he mistakes the widening of her eyes for shocked revulsion. "What? Did I do something wrong? They taste horrid, don't they? Fuck, I knew I shouldn't have added an extra half-tablespoon of sugar. God, I'm —"

"Scorpius? Do shut up; I'm trying to enjoy these bloody brilliant waffles over here."

"Brilliant? Are you fucking with me because I —"

"For the love of Merlin, they're fucking amazing. Heavenly. Wonderful. Now, stop fishing for compliments and leave us alone."

"Us?"

"The waffles and me, of course. The _only _loves in my life," she elaborates with a mischievous smirk.

He scoffs. "Don't be ridiculous, Rose."

"It's the truth!" she exclaims with a cheeky grin.

"Fine then, you don't get to have any more waffles," he harrumphs, snatching her plate away and holding it high above her head.

She narrows her eyes. Prat. Standing on her tiptoes, she jumps up and down in a hopeless attempt to grab the plate, but to little avail. Rose suddenly stops when she realizes that she is pressed flush against him, and she is immediately reminded of their, ah, _activities_ last night. She blushes as she remembers the sinful heaven of his skin and the thing he did with his tongue and the way he slowly licked, nipped, and kissed her breasts and down her stomach and —

"Reliving last night now, are we?" he murmurs, his lips brushing her ear.

"Possibly."

"More heavenly than the waffles?"

She's quite sure she resembles a tomato at this point. "I can't seem to remember much, so it mustn't have been that great."

He smirks. "Care to say that again without blushing, love?"

"Fuck you."

"Already wanting more of me? My, aren't you horny in the morning."

"And you're a fucking idiot who won't give me my waffles back."

"Only if you say you love me more than blueberry waffles."

She sighs in mock defeat. "Fine, I love you a _little _more than blueberry waffles. Happy?"

"Only a little?"

"Hand the waffles over."

"Minx," he grumbles, handing her the plate of waffles.

"You know you love me," she replies, happily digging into her waffles once again.

"Unfortunately."

She looks up from her waffles to see him mock pouting at her. Rose can't help but laugh, and he laughs, too. And for a moment, she wonders what it would be like to wake up next to him in the mornings and to eat blueberry waffles with him and to do crossword puzzles together on Sundays. She wonders what it would be like to listen to him play the piano at night and to live together and have her cat back with her. For a moment, she sees him cleaning her kitchen and hears him exasperatedly reminding her to do the laundry (again), and she can see them painting her bedroom a garish battle between Gryffindor and Slytherin colours before settling on the sky blue that it originally was when she bought her flat. For a second, she can see them arguing over the dumbest thing (like who will advance to the Quidditch World Cup finals), and she can see herself kicking him out of the flat at one in the morning and neither of them getting any sleep. She can see herself letting him back in and having make-up sex right where they are – probably scarring her poor, innocent cat for life. She can see them going out for drinks at ten in the morning and a cuppa at eleven at night and learning how to waltz in the rain and reading _Pride and Prejudice _and falling asleep together on the couch with her head resting where his neck meets his shoulder.

She can feel her heart soaring with the thought of it all, with the thought of truly loving him.

They're not perfect. They're not perfect, they're not simple, they're not logical. In fact, they're complicated, volatile, infuriating, and problematic; they're a series of volcanic eruptions threatening to tear the world and skies apart and they're the impending apocalypse waiting to happen. Yes, they're flawed, as flawed as a human being can possibly be, but they love each other. They love each other with a new, infant love, but it's the kind of love that wins wars and puts stars in the sky. It's that kind of love, and it's enough.

They love each other, and it's their saving grace.

-o-

* * *

**a/n: **i'm so sorry that i haven't posted a single fic in sixteen months and eleven days. it's just that i've been so busy with school and college admissions (_going to the university of texas for petroleum engineering and hoping to minor in comparative literature_) and i've actually had three ongoing fics that i've been writing over the past sixteen months whenever i get a chance - this is the first fic that i have finished. i am (possibly) working on the sequel to "please stay forever," so keep an eye out for it!

yep, that's it. _**please don't**_ favourite without reviewing!

until next time,

nic xo


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